Despite their best efforts, and the exhaustive efforts of every hunter that the Winchesters had ever encountered, finding Jessica and James had only resulted in dead ends. Dean wasn't surprised. There was a reason that he had gone to Sammy to try to find their dad, and it wasn't just his desire to see his baby brother again.

The country was pretty big, and finding a single person was next to impossible without any leads, and Sam's freak vision powers weren't giving them anything. That was assuming that they – Jessica, James, and Dad – were even still in the country. Dean doubted that they had been taken somewhere else, because it didn't make any sense that they would be - the Demon had never done anything significant outside of the States, California was already further south than anywhere that it had gone before. But, they didn't know that for sure, they didn't really know anything - for sure or not. Their dad's disappearance might be connected to the Demon, or it might just be Dad being Dad. They didn't know if it had anything to do with Jess and James' disappearance. They didn't even know if either had anything to do with the Demon, or if it was just another nasty out to hurt their family - not that Dean was willing to say that in Sam's earshot. It seemed unlikely that so much unconnected misery could affect one family, but luck had never had an easy relationship with the Winchesters.

Dean had always been of the - private - opinion that, as much as everyone had always called him his father's son - which wasn't always a compliment - Sam was the one who was most like their dad. They fought because they were so alike, so headstrong and certain of themselves in their convictions. They fought because they thought so similarly, but they always disagreed about that final step. Dad had changed his mission to hunting everything that could hurt, Sam was focused on killing the Demon with a single minded-determination. Dean hadn't seen tunnel vision like it since - well, since the first few weeks after Mom died. Once Dad had climbed out of his depression over losing his wife, he had jumped into his mission to stop the Demon, just like Sam had jumped into his. Only, Sam was clinging firmly to the belief that his friend and girlfriend were still alive - he had skipped that mourning period and gone straight into anger. Just like Dad had ignored the advice of everyone that had talked to him after Mom's death, just like he had ignored everyone's grief but his own, just like he had only barely been slowed down by his new status as a single and sole parent to a traumatised four-year-old and a six-month-old baby - Sam was doing the same.

He had left the hospital without even looking at the doctor advising rest and rehabilitation, and it was probably a sad fact of their lives that Dean hadn't listened either because he already knew as much about handling injuries like Sam's as most junior doctors. Sam wasn't letting his own hurts - emotional or physical - slow him down, even though Dean could hear him sobbing most nights. And, for all Sam wasn't letting his own fears stop him, he had managed to completely overlook Dean's own fears.

Their dad was missing, and, yeah, Dean was terrified. He was terrified that he was in trouble or in jail or that he might already be dead. He was terrified that they might find him and there would be nothing that he could do to keep Sam and John from ripping the other's throat out. They had clashed at the best of times, this was far from that. If John had ever regretted his threat to Sam he had never told Dean. Dean knew that his dad had missed Sam, that he had been just as proud of him as he was furious, that he wanted him home, close and safe, he viewed Sam leaving them as abandoning them. As abandoning Mom, and the search for her killer. He could already see how a reunion would devolve into another argument.

But, more than that, Dean was terrified of losing his brother. He didn't know what nightmares Sam was having, but he couldn't stop seeing that night every time he closed his eyes. There had been so much blood, and then Sam had closed his eyes and he hadn't opened them again. His hazy but also crystal clear memories of the night his mom died had overlapped with that night at Sam's apartment. He was carrying his baby brother out of a fire while his mom burned inside, only for the screams to become Sam's and then for them to stop.

There was no sound in the world that Dean hated more than his little brother crying, and he had woken up countless times over the years to hear that horrible sound coming, muffled, from the next bed. But it wasn't the crying that made his heart pound hard enough to wake him, it was that terrible silence. That echoing, deafening silence that seemed to cover every other sound. It made him sweat just to think about it.

There was a muted thump against the motel room door from the outside.

Dean had kicked Sam out of the room and told him to take a walk and get something to eat. He wasn't eating or sleeping, he was just working and researching. His skin hadn't regained its colour from the amount of blood that he had lost, and he had never had much weight to lose. Sam had switched overnight from a starving, growing, young boy to a picky teenager, and he hadn't grown back out of that yet. There was little that he would eat on a good day, and this was far from a good day. He ate to sustain himself, to pacify Dean, to keep himself awake to keep searching - but not because he wanted to. Dean heard the late-night heaving from the bathroom through the paper-thin motel room walls. He sent Sammy out in the hope that he would pick up something that he actually wanted to eat, and maybe relax a little out in the air. Going on walks had always been Sam's go-to response to an argument with their dad, no matter how cold it was outside. Although, that might have a little bit more to do with that 'Jack Frost' bombshell that he had dropped than it did any actual benefit Sam got from the exercise.

Dean heard Sam's muffled voice through the door, the low, weary tone pausing and answering at irregular intervals. Dean huffed, he should have taken his phone from him. Sam had been calling hunters up and down the country every hour for the past week.

Dean didn't have high hopes for this phone call. The door was thick enough to block out the words, but the defeated tone was loud and clear.

"Sammy?" He said, when the door finally opened and Sam stepped inside, shoving his phone in his pocket with one hand and carrying a bag of food with the other.

"Hey," Sam replied. And, there was that tone, loud and clear.

"Who called?" Dean asked, when it seemed like Sam wasn't going to say anything and was just going to stand, leaning back against the closed door until he melted into it.

Sam sighed and rubbed a hand down his face, trying to wake himself up slightly. "Bobby," he said, pinching his nose between his fore-fingers. "He didn't have any more news. But," he paused to hand over the food so that he had his second hand free to press his fingers to his temple. "He says that Jack is alive, which is… which is great." It didn't sound great, from the way that Sam said it, but Dean knew that he had been really worried about the spirit. It just wasn't news that they could work with.

"He's… he's not here, is he?" Dean asked, suddenly realising the problem of a mythical spirit that could only be seen if you believed in him. Sam had told him a little bit about him, and it had been pretty freaky to find out that there had been a winter sprite in their room with them growing up. All that effort to protect his brother, and it was no use against something that Sammy let in himself.

But Sam only snorted, not opening his now-closed eyes. "No. He's staying with Bobby for a while and then going north, it's hard enough in California when he's fine - he needs to be somewhere cold to finish healing up. But he's going to keep a lookout for anything that could help. He can get around pretty fast so he might find something before we can."

Dean nodded. "What about you? Are you feeling okay?"

Sam shrugged but he didn't answer. "Jack reckons that he might have an idea, but he's not very hopeful. I think finding Dad might be our best bet. I mean, no one knows more about the Demon than he does, right?"

That was true, but of the top experts on Yellow-Eyes, number two and three were in this room. Their dad probably had more theories than they could ever imagine, and he had definitely done more to prove or disprove them in over two decades of trying to hunt that thing than they could ever manage, but they were still trying to find a needle in a very large haystack, it was just a matter of which needle.

"Right, but, Sammy - we don't know where Dad is. If he wants us to - he'll call us as soon as he is able, alright?" Dean said, changing tactic when he saw Sam start to frown at the idea that their dad was avoiding them rather than being in danger. And, as much as Dean was worried for their father, he knew that it was more likely that this was just John Winchester being John Winchester.

It wasn't like him to disappear without any warning or explanation, but Sam's earlier scepticism wasn't entirely unfounded.

"That's not good enough, Dean! They could - she could - we don't -" Sam stuttered. He pressed his hands into his eye sockets and bit back a sob.

"Sammy," Dean sighed. He ignored Sam's attempts to push him away and dragged him into a hug. He wasn't much for chick-flick moments, and hugs weren't really the Winchester way of saying 'I love you,' but Sam was overdue for this little breakdown.

Dean walked them over to the bed, furthest from the door because those nightmares were dragging up all his old overprotective big-brother instincts. If Sam thought he was bad when he was twelve, he had no idea what he was going to be dealing with.

"C'mon, lie down. You need to get some sleep. We'll keep looking, we're not going to stop looking."

"Dean," Sam whimpered, and Dean could hear the question that Sam didn't want to ask.

"We'll find them, Sammy," Dean promised.

And Dean might not be the only one who felt like his younger self, because Sam looked up at him like he had when he had been a little kid, big, watery eyes that were so trusting. It had been years since Sam had unquestionably accepted anything that Dean said - the kid was probably smart to have started questioning some of it - and trusted his big brother entirely.

Dean was glad that Sam believed him, because he wasn't so sure.

Across the street, it watched, yellow eyes narrowing. It could smell the fear. It tasted best from children, they were so young and so innocent, but their fear knew no bounds. But this fear… it was glorious.

If it had a mouth it would be drooling.

Its Master would be pleased when it told him about this. Oh, it would feast tonight.